The common practice for analyzing dose contents of pMDIs is to tire a dose in the can through the actuator into a collection vessel. The dose is then washed down into a measuring, device and chemically analyzed, typically by a high performance liquid chromatograph (HPLC). When analyzing the dose content of other metered dose devices, such as a DPI (Dry Powder Inhaler) or a nasal spray, the preparation procedure is performed in a similar way. The preparation time when testing a single dose or a large number of doses is long for all the metered dose devices.
In addition, the analysis of leachables and excipients requires a in preparation process. Such a multi-step process for analyzing individual components of a drug dose is time-consuming.
The preparation and analysis time for such processes would be very costly for a large number of doses to be analyzed, which is often the case in the pharmaceutical industry. Thus, any process that reduces the required time of analysis and provides similar accuracy as conventional processes would be of significant value to the industry.